


The Magnetic Fields

by azraelgeffen



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:47:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2289137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azraelgeffen/pseuds/azraelgeffen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d transformed him back into a bird, as she was want to do when she didn’t want to listen him, and he’d up and flown away. She had expected him to return the next morning, sheepish and contrite, and they’d pretend he’d never said anything at all. That was how it was supposed to be. Except he hadn’t come back. Stupid bird. Stupid, infuriating bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Maleficent blamed herself for his leaving. It was true, that in the past she had enjoyed stroking the feathers of her raven, but really, there was nothing in it. It was a calming gesture, a caress over sleek black feathers, and a body that was somehow both solid and fragile. He was a good sized bird, a healthy adult male, and she enjoyed the feeling beneath her fingertips as they traced over the muscles reached from back to wing, the ones that ensured that those wings would beat hard enough to take flight. Yet with his hollow bones, he seemingly had no real substance, and she found that a marvel too. There had been times when he had perched on her shoulder with a touch so light that she could forget that he was there. When he alighted onto her hand, or her staff however, she could not ignore his presence. His eye was drawn to the creature, and her hand would automatically reach for his feathers. _Feathers._ Yes, it had been the feathers that drew her in, a caress of silent longing for the wings that had been stolen from her.

 

When he was a man, she would not lay as much as fingertip on him.

 

Fortunately he retained many of his birdlike features regardless of what form she had him take. In his human form it was apparent in the sharpness of his features, his cheekbones, his pointed nose, his black eyes. Even his hair belied his true nature; blue-black and streaked with the occasional feather, he was really human. As a man, however, his scars were starkly apparent. The evidence of territorial wars with other birds from his time before coming to the moors, not to mention old wounds from run ins with dogs, farmers with pitchforks, and even the occasional housewife with a broom. In the more immediate past, his scars had been inflicted by the soldiers of the human world – Stefan’s army waging war against all those who lived in the Moors. Even with all of these scars, however, and even as a man, he was still rather pretty to look at. She supposed she could give him _that_.

 

But, she decided, he had spent far too long in the body of a man. So long that he had developed the mind of one too. That, and possibly the effects of too much wine at Aurora’s wedding feast, could be the only explanation as to why, he had decided to go and ruin everything. He’d become too familiar! He’d decided that they were equals! He’d certainly started taking liberties, and by the gods she had let him, because she had grown used to him and she enjoyed a good argument, but no more! He’d started yammering on with ridiculous talk about mated pairs, choosing to stay with her for all these years, raising Aurora together – _together –_ as though they were some old married couple! Clearly he had taken leave of his senses. They were _not_ an old married couple, they had _not_ raised Aurora together, and they were most certainly _not_ a mated pair! They were mistress and servant, and he was drunk, and she had been quick to remind him of that.

 

Then the feathered fool had declared his undying love for her, and she’d been quick to say a lot more things that she probably should have kept to herself.  She’d transformed him back into a bird, as she was want to do when she didn’t want to listen him, and he’d up and flown away.

 

She had expected him to return the next morning, sheepish and contrite, and they’d pretend he’d never said anything at all. That was how it was supposed to be. Except he hadn’t come back. Stupid bird. Stupid, infuriating bird.

 

Why on earth had she transformed him into a man? Of all the forms she could have given him, why choose something so loathsome as a man? Not that the why of it really mattered; she’d said the words and he’d taken that form, and it was too late to change it now. She could choose to leave him as a bird now that she had no use for him, but if she was honest with herself, she enjoyed his company, even when he was bickering with her. Which he seemed to do constantly. Like the old married couple he’d likened them to. Which they were _not._

 

_But he_ was _pretty to look at._

 

_Be that as it may, he flew off and didn’t come back!_

 

She scolded herself for her inner dialogue. He was well within his rights to leave. The war was over, Aurora was queen, and Maleficent’s wings had come back to her. Their worlds had returned to beauty, and Maleficent’s heart had grown light again. She had no need of borrowed wings, and she had told him that his debt was paid, he could go if he chose. Diaval had stayed.

 

“You can’t be everywhere,” he’d said. “You can always use a spare set of wings.”

 

And he had been right. Their lands might be at peace, but greed would always lurk in the hearts of men, and there were those who would seek to exploit the new connection with the moors. Maleficent’s role of protector would never be at an end. So Diaval had stayed, and he had helped her as he had always helped her, and she was glad of it. Now that he was free, however, he had stopped holding his tongue when he disagreed with her, not that he’d ever held his tongue, but if she’d thought him an argumentative little bird before, he was doubly so now.

 

Yet, once again, in moments of honest reflection, she admitted she enjoyed their verbal sparring. No one ever responded to her imperious nature with a tart retort; no one ever nagged her to do what was right; no one ever laughed at her; no one but Diaval.

 

Why did he have to complicate things?

 

Stupid bird.

 


	2. Two

Maleficent hadn’t been to the ruins since Stefan had cut off her wings. It was a dark, miserable place, and one that was generally shunned by the creatures the Moors. It was once a castle, built by a human king who had tried to subjugate the fae, and who had died for his crimes against them in a war that had waged long before Maleficent was born. The flower fairies and wood elves said his shade still haunted that place, but Maleficent had never encountered such ghosts there. All she had found at the ruins was dark, solitude, and silence, which was why she had gone back there when the din created by Thistlewit’s birthday celebrations grew too much. Even the sanctity of her nest had not given her peace from all the merriment. The noise had simply followed her, as though determined that she would share in the event. In the end she had taken flight, and when she landed she was back at the ruins that had been her sanctuary once before.

This place knew her pain.

It was also the place where she had first seen Diaval. He had landed on a broken pillar and cawed at her, and she had scared him away. He was simply a raven then; clever as far as birds go, but not a particularly complex creature. She had changed that the day she had saved him from the cruelty of the farmer and his dog. She had changed him far too much. He had outlived the natural lifespan of a raven, sustained by her magic, which flowed through his veins as thick as blood. She didn’t know how much of his mind had been gifted to him with her magic, or if he had naturally been capable of rational thought and complexity of emotion before she’d changed him. Staring at the pillar where he had first landed, when she had looked at him through a haze of pain and hatred, she thought she could remember something in the way he tilted his head, in the sound of his caw. Knowing him as she now did, she could guess that he had seen her there in pain, and had come to offer comfort. She wished he’d come again.

She had never realized how much of a buffer he had been between her and the rest of the fae folk. Even a party was intolerable without having him there to complain to, or share a malicious joke with. He always seemed to know when it was grating on her nerves, and he’d tell her he felt like flying. Now even flying was an exercise in loneliness. Damn him! Damn him for leaving!

She settled in the ruins, and didn’t return to the moors that night, or the next.

Or the next.

In fact she stayed until Aurora came well over a week later.

“Hello Godmother.”

If she was prone to such thing, she would have jumped in fright. When had Aurora become so soft of foot? She spun on her heel, almost ungainly in her effort to not look surprised, and found the queen of both lands smiling up at her from the stairs. Aurora fairly shone in the gloom of the ruins, like a star that had fallen into some desolate spot.

“Hello Beastie,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were back from your honeymoon. Why have you come to such a place as this? You should be telling everyone about your adventures abroad.” 

“My aunties told me you were here, and I thought you might need someone to talk to.”

“And why do you think I would need someone to talk to?” She asked dismissively.

Aurora took a step forward, but did not reach for her. “Because Diaval is gone.”

Maleficent’s eyes flashed green and bright, a dangerous sign at the best of times. “Those ridiculous flower fairies have been gossiping again.”

“They are worried about you,” Aurora said hastily. “They said you hadn’t come here since _before_ … in the dark times.”

Maleficent wrapped her robes tight around herself, and her wings twitched defensively.

“Why did he leave?” Aurora asked.

“He wanted to find a mate,” she replied, with artful nonchalance.

At this, Aurora was confused. She frowned, an expression that never sat well on her pretty face, and looked up at her godmother. “But _why?”_ she asked, clearly baffled.

“Good lord, Aurora, you’ve been married for almost two months, I’m sure you can guess the reason!”

Aurora had the good sense to blush, but she was still staring at Maleficent as though she were speaking in tongues. “But I thought…” She stopped, and blinked a few times, as though trying to digest what she was hearing. “I thought you and he…”

Now it was Maleficent’s turn to be astonished. “Has everyone suddenly taken leave of their senses?” She asked. “Diaval is – _was_ – my _servant_! He is a bird, not a man, or have you forgotten that?”

“But you changed that, Godmother! For better or for worse, you changed him into a man!”

“Now you sound like him,” Maleficent growled, turning away from her.

“And why should I not? He was more a father to me than my own ever was!”

“Oh don’t be so melodramatic, Aurora.”

Aurora reached for her arm, desperate. “But Godmother, how could you let him go? He wants to find a mate? Is that what he said? What did he say?”

“Nothing! Nothing of consequence! He was raving like a lunatic, going on about his heart and loving me, as though such a thing was even a possibility…”

“He loves you?” Aurora asked quickly. “He told you that he loves you?”

“Amongst his other ravings.”

“But if he loves you, why would he leave? Did you send him away?”

“Love does not exist, Aurora.” She snapped.

“You know that is not true! Your love saved me, Godmother! Your love for me was pure and true, and it saved me.”

“The fairytale romance is for you, and you alone, I will always be the villain of the piece,” Maleficent said bitterly. 

“But Diaval loves you! He has stayed with you through everything! He has listened to you, comforted you, he knows all your wonders and all your faults, and he loves you, Godmother – and I think that you love him too! Why else would you bring yourself to this awful place? You miss him!” 

“He was my _pet_ , Aurora!” Maleficent cried.

Aurora fell silent, and grew pale. She stumbled back, and reached for something to steady herself, and for a moment Maleficent thought she had frightened her. Aurora was not afraid, however, she never would be, not of Maleficent; she looked up at her, stricken.

“By the gods,” she pleaded, “you did not say that to him, did you?”

But of course she had. The last thing she had said to him, the last bit of spite that she could throw at him. She’d compared him to the yappy little lap dog that Phillip had given Aurora for her 17th birthday; she’d called him her pet, and a pitiful one at that.

Aurora sank to the stairs, unwilling to even look at her godmother then. “How long has he been gone?” she asked.

“Seven weeks,” Maleficent replied, and she felt as hollow as she sounded.

“Then I hope he has found what he was looking for,” Aurora said, and she left the ruins with Maleficent still inside.


	3. three

Unable to leave things in such a way, Aurora returned to the moors within the month to find Maleficent back at the great tree, and Diaval still gone.

“No doubt he’s found himself a female and she’s sitting on a nest of eggs as we speak,” Maleficent said, and even as she did her stomach performed a slow sickly roll that left her nauseous.

“Yes godmother,” Aurora replied.

“And no doubt very he’s very happy,” she continued.

“No doubt.”

“Yes. Vastly contented with his female and their eggs.”

“Vastly,” Aurora agreed.

Maleficent frowned. The very idea of Diaval, her Diaval, doing that with anyone, even if it was a bird… She shuddered. He had been gone for so long now, she wondered if he even remembered what it was like to be a man, or had he reverted back to his raven’s brain. Simple, uncomplicated. She wondered if he’d ever really had a raven’s brain at all. 

At night she lay in her nest, her wings folded around her, marveling at the way the moonlight shone through the coloured crystals that hung suspended from the branches above. His crystals. His nest, far smaller than hers and further up the tree, had fallen into ruin, but his crystals remained and she didn’t take them down. Some nights when she was half asleep she could pretend that he was still up there, sleeping peacefully with his head tucked under his wing., the coloured light of the crystals creating patterns on his black wings.

“Have you noticed the days have grown dark?” Aurora asked.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Maleficent replied.

“They’re cold too, here on the Moors. The creatures are worried, that the dark times are returning.”

Maleficent jerked her chin sharply. “What? Why would they think such a thing? Has something happened?”

“Nothing between the lands,” Aurora said. “But the last time your heart grew cold…”

“The last time? My heart has not grown cold! There is nothing the matter with me!”

“As you say, Godmother,” Aurora replied.

But Aurora was right and she knew it. The days had grown dark, and the light of the Moors had dimmed. She had become obsessed with the moonlight through stones, and so she had created a perpetual twilight. This was not the result of her heart growing cold, oh no, this was her missing him so much it hurt to think of him. And hurt doubly so not to. She had to stop this worthless lament. She had to get back to being the protector of the moors, and bring the sunlight back to her home. Diaval had gone, it was his choice, and she must carry on without him.

She brushed away the remnants of his nest, blowing the occasional stray black feathers away in the wind, and she pulled his crystals down.

“Stupid bird,” she murmured, as she returned the stones to the riverbed.


	4. Four

 Four

She was healing a group of ring barked trees in the oak grove when he returned. She hadn’t been thinking about him, focused more on the destructive nature of the human’s who had desecrated the grove, but she heard him coming. A soft beat of wings, like the rustle of raw, silk came to her on the breeze. It sounded off however, as though he was trying to sneak up on her, and with malicious pleasure she transformed him before he had a chance to land. She heard the heavy thud behind her, and smiled to herself. Let him wait. Let her heart stop thumping so hard in her chest before she turned around to face him.

“So, you’ve come back then?” she asked, purposefully uncaring and still not ready to look at him. When he didn’t answer she continued. “So, how is the world of the ravens? Is it as you remembered it?”

Still he was silent. _Dear God, what if he’s brought some dreadful she-raven back with him? What if he wants me to given her human form?_

She turned then, somehow convincing herself that this must be his purpose in coming back, and found that he was not standing behind her at all.

_And now I’m hearing things._

She scowled into the darkened grove, and started to turn back to the tree, her gaze sweeping across the ground as she did so. That was when she saw him, and everything in her world slowed and narrowed to the single vision before her. He was not standing there as she thought he would be, he had brought no female back to roost. He lay at her feet, naked, face down, arms outstretched as though he’d not even tried to stop his fall. He looked as though he were not even real; his skin was waxy, and as pale as milk.

_Where did all the blood come from?_

She couldn’t seem to reconcile her brain to what she was seeing.

“Diaval?”

Her voice sounded oddly high pitched, and she almost didn’t recognize it as her own. She dropped heavily to her knees beside him, feeling as though the breath had been knocked out of her. Her hands were shaking as she reached for him, and then she hesitated as she saw the source of all the blood.

The head of an arrow, large and cruel jutted out from the flesh beneath his shoulder blade. His left arm and shoulder were twisted back, pushed too far across his body to be right. Without thinking, she moved him, rolling him onto his side and cried out when she saw, really saw, what had happened to him.

“Oh, Diaval, what have they done to your beautiful self?”

He did not answer. He could not. Several seconds passed and they felt like hours, and in those seconds she thought that he was lying there dead. She reached, her fingers suddenly clumsy and not at all the healing things on which she could depend, and felt along his pale throat for a pulse. She couldn’t find one, but that meant nothing. She had gone numb. She couldn’t feel anything beneath her fingertips. It was the first time she had ever touched him in this form and she couldn’t feel anything! Instead she looked at the site of the wound, and was horrified to realize that she could _see_ that he was still alive. She could see into his body!  The arrow had entered under his armpit, and had wrenched his arm from its socket, tearing the flesh from his side in its momentum and exposed his broken rib cage to the elements. The bone was stark and white, and inside she saw the working of his lungs, and his beating heart.

She stupidly asked herself how so much damage could be caused by a single arrow, and the answer was immediate and obvious; he had been shot as a bird, and the arrow was thick and heavy. It was an arrow big enough to penetrate the armor of a knight, to a bird it had been devastating. It had torn his wing asunder, splintering bone and cleaving his body open, but also pinning the wing to him, outstretched, which is how she assumed he had managed to stay in the air. That was why the beating of his wings had sounded so strange; he’d only been able to move one of them. She wondered if she would have been able to stay aloft in the same situation. The stubborn bird had refused to fall. He wasn’t going to let some human have the satisfaction of bringing him down. He’d made it home, in spite of everything.

She stroked his hair back from his face, trying to calm herself as she would have with his feathers. She could heal the trees, and calm a storm. She could cool the very earth beneath her feet, and she would heal him, her beautiful Diaval. She would heal him, and he would never again be allowed to leave. She would keep him with her, safe in the Moors, and no one would ever hurt him. Never again.

_And what if I can’t heal him?_

It didn’t bear thinking about. She would heal him, and that was that.

She slid her cloak from her shoulders, and wrapped him gently in it, careful not to cause any more damage to the horrifying wound. Then she levitated him into the air, and began the slow walk back through the Moors to her nest.


	5. Five

Five

The fae were unused to their kind being injured. The magic of the Moors had almost cocooned them from the horrors that the humans would visit upon their kind in the times of the old kings. They had been protected, not least by Maleficent and the warriors raised from the earth to defend their realm. Maleficent’s wings being cut from her body had become a story told to frighten children, or a cautionary tale for those who sought to venture beyond the grove, and into the human world. It was only natural then, that as she walked through the moors guiding his body between the trees, over rocks and across streams, that they all came out to bear witness.

She shut out their voices, and closed her eyes to their looks of horror. She did not need to hear their gasps of shock or cries of alarm. The whispers, repeated over and again, asking ‘what happened?’ and ‘is he dead?’  would become a roar in her ears if she let them in. She did not need to see their stricken faces, because that would just prove to her that they loved him, and they had always loved him, and she had been the fool who had let him go. No, there would be time to deal with them later; there would be time to explain when his body wasn’t cleaved open and the arrow that had destroyed him wasn’t the only thing holding him together!

She stumbled, and almost sank to the ground in despair, but just as her knees started to buckle he drifted closer and his foot nudged one of her horns, much as he would have had he still been a bird hell bent on reminding her that she did have a heart. She reached behind her head and clutched his ankle.

_“Help, me Diaval,”_ she whispered, but it wasn’t his turn to do her bidding.

She turned and made a show of adjusting the robe, ensuring that it was still wrapped around him. She didn’t want them to see her weak, and if they saw the damage to his body, panic would ensue; not to mention the fact that if he woke up and discovered she’d paraded him naked through the Moors, she’d never hear the end of it. She gently stroked his hair again, then caressed his cheek, and found him burning with fever.

“ _Hold on, Diaval,”_ she whispered, and continued on. Nothing else mattered now. Not the Moors, not the whispers of the creatures she had known for the whole of her life; not even the humans mattered now. All that mattered was getting through the Moors to her nest, and once there she would heal him. That was all.

Above the Moors thunder rumbled low and heavy, and the sky ran black as night.

The world fell silent as she walked through it.

In her nest she brought him to rest gently on his side, and cast a charm to light her work. She hesitated, her hands hovering above the robe, not wanting to unwrap it and see the mess they had made of him. She closed her eyes, and tried to calm her breathing; and then she unfolded the cloth from around him.

 It was worse, if that was at all possible, than she had thought. In the grove it had seemed a mass of blood and raw flesh, and it wasn’t until she had really looked that she’d seen the white of bone and the fleeting glimpse of his heart. She had looked away then, knowing that he was alive and not wanting to see further. She had been so focused on getting to the nest to heal him that she hadn’t thought beyond the walk. Now she had to act. _Now she had to heal him._

She had to focus on the task at hand, not dwell on her own fears.

Had the arrow struck him as the man she had made him, it would have caused damage, but it wouldn’t have torn him open. It hadn’t struck him as a man however, he had been shot while still a bird. Just a bird. Nothing special, except to those who knew him. To a human, he would have been nothing more than a black bird in the sky, so why had they shot him? This was not the work of a farmer protecting his crops. The arrow was thick and black and heavy, a war arrow from a long bow. To hit a bird in full flight was the work of an archer, and archer was part of the human army, resident at the castle. But Aurora would never condone such a thing. The killing of wild birds, shooting down ravens, she would never allow it!

Could it be that her beloved Diaval had simply been the victim of some fool human’s target practice? The very idea sickened her.

She summoned water from the sacred spring, rich in minerals and the base of a strong healing brew – which was useless if he couldn’t drink it. She transformed a leaf into a soft cloth and soaked it in the water, and gently she began to clean the wound.

The arrow had to be removed before she could move his arm. She had healed broken bones before, but nothing of his magnitude. His left side gaped open as an unsightly hole ringed in shredded flesh. His exposed ribs revealed not a bone left unbroken, and inside his heart worked, and his lungs filled with blood. A knob of bone, horribly bright, jutted from the torn raw meat that had once connected his arm to his shoulder.

And holding him together was the thick black shaft of the arrow. The arrow that she had to remove.

The head was made of iron, and she had to wrap it in cloth and twist it until it snapped, and then she threw it as far from the nest as she could without leaving him. The shaft slid easily from his body then, and she looked at it in her hand. The wood was black and streaked in gore, the fletching was from a hawk – no doubt another bird they had killed for their pleasure. She threw the shaft away too.

She cast charms long into the night, and when morning came, she could scarce tell the difference. Bone, muscle and sinew took time to knit back together. More than a nights work. She strapped his arm back against his body, forcing the bone back into the rotator cuff and holding it in place. The fever raged on. She washed him, running the cloth over his slender body and washing away the grime and blood, and the effluent from where his body had evacuated his bladder and bowels.

Still the fever burned in him. 

The iron. The iron in the arrowhead had poisoned him. He had long outlived the natural lifespan of a raven, and it was her magic that sustained him, and her magic was the magic of the fairies. _And iron was poison to fairies._ The fever was perhaps a good thing then. Burning hot to burn the poison out of him. She wrapped him in blankets, and drew him to her, enfolding him in her wings.

She stayed like that for a long time.

 

 


	6. Six

Six

It was Phillip, not Aurora, who ventured onto the Moors to find the cause of the darkness that had covered the faerie realm. He followed the fairy path, which was no longer shining with golden light but still visible as it wound its way past the sentinels. As he crossed into the Moors the darkness seemed to settle around him, and he strained his eyes in a vain effort to see, but even as they adjusted to the gloom, the shadows hung heavy and he struggled to find any familiar landmark. He thought to turn back, but knew that Aurora, already frantic over the possible reasons for the darkness, would rush back there herself, and he couldn’t let that happen.

He left his horse with his steward, not wanting to inadvertently lame it in a hidden fox hole or other such hollow, and in turn found himself stumbling over tree roots and stones, until finally he made his way through. Beyond the grove, the Moors had become a world of night, lit by the soft glow of phosphorescent crystals, and hovering will-o-the-wisps. He had been to the Moors many times, and never had he seen it so. Unlike Aurora, he did not feel at home in this place, and so he never stayed late, escaping to a nearby village inn to spend the night. Aurora would stay forever if she could, ensconced in her Godmother’s nest like a bird.

In truth, Maleficent scared Phillip more than a little, not least because she had a habit of putting people to sleep if she didn’t want to speak to them. The fact that the horned faerie enjoyed the company of very few creatures didn’t help. 

He told himself to not be afraid, reasoning it would look the same if had actually been night. It was really quite beautiful, in a dark and melancholy way. If it hadn’t been midday, Phillip reasoned, he probably wouldn’t have worried at all.  

“Phillip? Phillip what are you doing here?”

He jumped in spite of himself, and turned to find Knotgrass fluttering behind him, looking concerned to find him alone in the Moors.

“Is Aurora alright? Has something happened?”

“Yes!” He smiled, trying to put the pixie at ease. “She sent me – we saw that the sky had turned black…”

Knotgrass snorted with derision. “Yes, well you won’t need two guesses at whose fault that is!” she snapped nastily. “The way she sent the light away, you’d think he’d died!”

“Who? Who died?”

“No one! No one has died! So he got shot by an arrow; she’s fixing him isn’t she? All this just because he got hurt, it’s ridiculous.”

“Who got hurt?” Phillip asked, but he already knew the answer.

“That silly bird of hers of course! He shouldn’t have been in the farmer’s crops, should he? It’s little wonder they shot him down. And it’s not just Maleficent that’s mooning about as though it’s the end of the world, half the population of the Moors are crying over him like squalling children! We’ve been getting intermittent rain storms for days!”

Of the three pixies Aurora called her aunties, Knotgrass was the one that Phillip could least tolerate. They were all silly and self absorbed, but they were generally good-natured. Knotgrass however, had a meanness to her that Phillip found repugnant, and never more so than now.  Aurora’s worst fears had been realized, and Knotgrass was complaining about the rain!

“Where is Maleficent’s nest?” he asked. “I can’t seem to get my bearings in the dark.

“Oh, just follow the wisps, dear, they’ll lead you to her. That’s if she’ll see you. Flittle did say that she was blaming all humans for this, and you know what she’s like when she’s angry.” 

Phillip had indeed seen her angry, but he’d been fortunate not to know Maleficent at her worst, and he had no desire to. He needed to talk to her, find out what had happened, before she could sink deeper into her bitterness.

He followed the wisps to the great tree, relieved that they did not take him too close to the edge of the cliff on which it was perched. The nest wasn’t too high in its branches, which was fortunate given the size of it. It was certainly large enough to happily shelter several people, although Phillip would never understand how anyone could call a nest home.  Maleficent had woven a bower over it, so at least it was well sheltered from the elements. From his place on the ground, Phillip could see light coming from within, and he swallowed down his fear before calling to her.

“Maleficent?” When she didn’t answer he called her name again, hoping that he wasn’t going to have to beg for entrance. He was about to give up when she finally emerged.

“What do you want, Phillip?” she asked, and then she frowned. “Has something happened to Aurora?” she asked quickly.

“No, Aurora is fine… I have news. Can I come up?”

For a moment he thought she might leave him standing there, but she stepped aside, and motioned for him to climb up to the nest. It was an easy climb, the tree was twisted in such a way as to make it a simple matter of stepping up, and he hesitated for a moment before ducking in through the rounded entrance and stepping into the huge nest.

Diaval was there, wrapped in a thick comforter, but he looked sick and Phillip’s breath hitched at the sight of him there. He liked Diaval, even though Aurora referred to him as ‘pretty bird’ when he was in his natural form. Diaval usually took Phillip’s part in arguments when Maleficent was opposed to some decision or other that he’d made, and that was enough for Phillip to consider him a friend. He went to kneel beside the sleeping figure, but Maleficent stopped him. 

“He’s been hurt,” he said, feeling foolish for stating the obvious.

“Yes, and unless you have suddenly developed healing abilities, there is nothing you can do for him,” she replied.

“What happened? Knotgrass said he was shot by a farmer? He was in their crops?”

“Of course he wasn’t shot by a farmer! How many farmers do you know of that are skilled with a longbow? One of your archers shot him down!” She glared at him, seemingly accusing him of something.

That made no sense. “But… no! Why would one of our archers shoot him?”

“Target practice?”

Phillip swallowed. It was possible and he knew it.

“Is he going to be alright?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead she knelt down in the place that Phillip had thought to kneel, and rested her palm against his forehead. Then she unwrapped him, and Phillip noticed how gentle she was, as though he was made of glass.  Over his shoulder and down his side was a scar that looked raw and fresh, and Phillip drew back, repulsed at the sight of it.

“It was worse,” she said, not looking at him. “It was much worse.”

He wanted to say something, but words failed him.

“Why are you here, Phillip?” she asked, still focused on her task. She began applying a balm to the ragged scar. It smelled of herbs and flowers.  A golden light flowed from her palms, infusing his flesh where they connected. “Where is Aurora?”

“She’s back at the castle. She’s resting.”

“I thought you said she was fine, why would she need to rest?” She looked at him finally, clearly concerned.

“She is! I mean, she has been unwell, but she is fine.” He smiled. “Aurora is… _we_ _are_ … going to have a baby.”

Maleficent stilled, her hand hovering over the scar. “A baby?” She seemed to breathe the word.

“She wanted to tell you herself, obviously, but she’s been sick. The Midwives say that’s normal. But when she saw the sky, she began to fret and I wanted to put her mind at ease.” He sighed and looked to Diaval. “Is he going to be alright?” he asked again, although the question racing through his mind was ‘ _will he live?_ ’ He could not imagine how Aurora would cope if he died, she’d been frantic enough after he had left.

“The fever has broken, and I’ve closed the wound. He woke briefly yesterday, but he was in so much pain that I gave him a sleeping draught.” She swallowed, surprising Phillip by exhaling shakily, as though fighting back a sob. “I believe he will recover,” she said.

“What did you do with the arrow?” he asked.

“I threw it away. I don’t want it near our home.”

“May I look for it?”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“I want to take it back to the castle. Arrows have distinctive fletching, it might help determine who fired it. I want to help, and as you pointed out, I have no talent to heal him. At least let me find out who fired the arrow.”

“And then what? Will you kill the culprit?”

The very idea shocked Phillip. He could not think that anyone would have purposely targeted Diaval, so shooting the raven would have been a random, thoughtless act. He could hardly execute someone for it, and he told her so.

“Then what is the point of you?” she asked, but fear had made her spiteful. Her only real focus was the man laid out before her, and Phillip knew that he would get nothing more than hostility from her until he was well again.

Instead of arguing, he took his leave, and doubted that she’d noticed him go. It took him a while to find the arrow in the dark, but once he had he walked out of the Moors, relieved to get back to the world he understood.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Seven

By the time he woke, she knew every part of him. She had taken to cleansing him with water infused with oils provided by the flowers she had spent her life protecting. The ritual washing had helped bring the fever down when it had reached its peak; it had washed blood away, calmed raw flesh, and taught her the very intricacies of his body. Where once she had refused to touch him as a man, her hands now knew every muscle, every scar, hollow, curve and crevice of his slender form. 

When the fever finally broke, he’d stirred. He’d jerked his chin in his sleep, and he made small sound that was enough to bring her heart to her throat. He’d stayed on his side, his eyes closed and breathing shallow and harsh. He was still as pale as the yarrow flowers she had used to staunch the flow of blood from his wounds, but she thought that she could discern the faintest flush of colour in his cheek. Beneath his eyes the shadows wrought by the ordeal were stark, and they gave him a hollow look. But he was alive, and the fever had left him, and his body was whole again.

Maleficent stroked his hair, unconsciously preening him, tucking stray feathers back into the soft tangle of his dark hair. Occasionally he would frown at the touch, as though aware that someone was there, but unsure as to whom it might be. In these moments she would whisper to him, like a continuous prayer that altered in words, but never in sentiment: _“Diaval please, please try, please come back to me, I need you, Diaval, please come back to me,”_ and under such litanies the frown would finally fade and he rested easy. Then she would lay down behind him, curving herself around his back and enfold him in her wings.

“I love you, Diaval,” she whispered into the back of his neck, so sure of herself now that she was certain he could not hear.


	8. eight

He woke in the early morning while she slept. He opened his eyes, and blinked, and blinked again, and could not place where he was. His last memories were of pain, of certainty that he was going to die, and the effort to stay aloft. He had no memory of landing. 

He realized he was no longer a bird when he tried to move and his body felt heavy and awkward. His limbs were too long, his head too big, and every part of him ached. There was only one way that he could be human, only one creature that could have changed him.

“Maleficent?”

He was alarmed at the sound of his voice. His throat stung with the effort to produce the rasping whisper. He tried to swallow, but it only made it worse..

Behind him someone stirred, and he felt himself drawn back by a tight grip around his chest. Too tight. It hurt to breathe. He tried to push whatever held him away, but even as he tried to move his arm, the pain tore through him, fresh and raw and hot, bringing tears unbidden to his eyes. He cried out pathetically in spite of himself.

Behind him, Maleficent woke with a start and rolled him onto his back far too quickly for comfort. He winced as she shifted him, cried out again, and then swore violently, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain.

“Diaval?”

She sounded frantic. He opened his eyes and looked up at her, trying to take in the expression that marred her features.

“Where am I?” he rasped, panic rising in him. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t. If he was dead and she was there, then that meant she was dead too, and that was something to terrible to contemplate. Besides, the pain was searing hot, reaching into his very core, and wasn’t the good thing about being dead the fact that you no longer felt pain?

“Home, Diaval. You’re home now.”

She was stroking his hair. When did she start stroking his hair? He had to be dead. Pain or no, she wouldn’t be stroking his hair if he were alive!

“Diaval, please…” she whispered.

“Home?” he asked. _Dear Badb, why did every part of him hurt?_

“The Moors,” she said, and she smiled down at him, but as she tried to speak a sob wrenched from deep in her throat.

Diaval frowned. “Why are you crying?”

Did he look that bad? Was she miserable that he’d come back? Had she been happier alone?

“I didn’t…” She drew a shuddered breath. “You were so… _so hurt_ … I didn’t think you’d wake up…”

She sounded broken. So unlike herself.

“I’m awake now,” he said. His throat reminded him that it hurt, like everything else.

“Diaval.” The word came from her, like a breath on the air. She reached out for him, and placed her hand, open palmed on his chest and felt his heart beating a constant rhythm beneath it.

He stilled under her touch. His breathing seemed to come easier. His eyes widened, and at that moment she confused him by looking into them as though they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. With a touch as light as gossamer wings, she ran her fingers over the shadows under his eyes, wetting them with his tears. His eyelids fluttered, as though to blink away her touch, and then stayed open to allow her to explore the silken texture of his skin. Those same fingers trailed down the smooth curve of his cheek and along the sharp line of his jaw, her expression fixed as one of fascination, as though she was just seeing him for the first time and was astonished to find beauty in his features. His narrow pointed nose, his sharp cheekbones, his black eyes and pointed chin, nothing appeared to be beyond her notice.

Her fingers traced the scars around his eyes. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked, and her voice trembled as she spoke.                                    

“ _You_ … you were all I ever wanted,” he rasped in reply.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, we watched Maleficent for family movie night, and then my brain went into overdrive (and not in a family friendly way). This story won't leave me alone, so I decided I'd better write it down. Don't judge me...


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